SignificanceDetermining the long-term cognitive impact of infections is clinically challenging. Using functional cortical connectivity, we demonstrate that interhemispheric cortical connectivity is decreased in individuals with acute Zika virus (ZIKV) encephalitis. This correlates with decreased presynaptic terminals in the somatosensory cortex. During recovery from ZIKV infection, presynaptic terminals recover, which is associated with recovered interhemispheric connectivity. This supports the contribution of synapses in the cortex to functional networks in the brain, which can be detected by widefield optical imaging. Although myeloid cell and astrocyte numbers are still increased during recovery, RNA transcription of multiple proinflammatory cytokines that increase during acute infection decreases to levels comparable to mock-infected mice during recovery. These findings also suggest that the immune response and cytokine-mediated neuroinflammation play significant roles in the integrity of brain networks during and after viral encephalitis.AimWe hypothesized that widefield optical imaging would allow us to assess functional cortical network disruption by ZIKV, including hippocampal-cortical networks.ApproachWe use widefield optical imaging to measure cortical functional connectivity (FC) in mice during acute infection with, and recovery from, intracranial infection with a mouse-adapted strain of ZIKV.ResultsAcute ZIKV infection leads to high levels of myeloid cell activation, with loss of neurons and presynaptic termini in the cerebral cortex and associated loss of FC primarily within the somatosensory cortex. During recovery, neuron numbers, synapses, and FC recover to levels near those of healthy mice. However, hippocampal injury and impaired spatial cognition persist. The magnitude of activated myeloid cells during acute infection predicted both recovery of synapses and the degree of FC recovery after recovery from ZIKV infection.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that a robust inflammatory response may contribute to the health of functional brain networks after recovery from infection.
SignificanceWide-field optical imaging (WOI) can produce concurrent hemodynamic and cell-specific calcium recordings across the entire cerebral cortex in animal models. There have been multiple studies using WOI to image mouse models with various environmental or genetic manipulations to understand various diseases. Despite the utility of pursuing mouse WOI alongside human functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and the multitude of analysis toolboxes in the fMRI literature, there is not an available open-source, user-friendly data processing and statistical analysis toolbox for WOI data.AimTo assemble a MATLAB toolbox for processing WOI data, as described and adapted to combine techniques from multiple WOI groups and fMRI.ApproachWe outline our MATLAB toolbox on GitHub with multiple data analysis packages and translate a commonly used statistical approach from the fMRI literature to the WOI data. To illustrate the utility of our MATLAB toolbox, we demonstrate the ability of the processing and analysis framework to detect a well-established deficit in a mouse model of stroke and plot activation areas during an electrical paw stimulus experiment.ResultsOur processing toolbox and statistical methods isolate a somatosensory-based deficit 3 days following photothrombotic stroke and cleanly localize sensory stimulus activations.ConclusionsThe toolbox presented here details an open-source, user-friendly compilation of WOI processing tools with statistical methods to apply to any biological question investigated with WOI techniques.
Obtaining high signal to noise ratio is challenging in wide-field two photon microscopy and one must ensure the mouse brain can be imaged safely under high laser power. Here, we demonstrated a simultaneous thermal imaging and two photon imaging technique. The maximum temperature of the cortex was below 39°C using 400mW laser power with a 5 x 5mm field of view. Together with the brain activities under hind paw stimulation and at rest, we argued that high laser power for wide-field two-photon imaging can potentially be used while keeping the temperature under safety limit.
By paying careful attention to optical and mechanical design, a two-photon microscope (TPM) can image a large field of view (FOV) with high spatial and temporal resolution. Successfully applying such a TPM for functional neuroimaging requires careful consideration of the signal properties, physiological limitations, and image processing techniques. We present our thermal imaging results as well as functional imaging results in awake mice using a fast, large FOV TPM, and discuss how the system expands the spatial bandwidth available for studying functional connectivity.
Quick and accurate parcellation of neural networks has been a goal spanning multiple decades of research in the functional MRI world in order to organize and understand the overwhelmingly complex human brain with high statistical rigor. The same mathematical development in the mouse brain, which is frequently studied to understand human conditions, has been lagging. To this end, we perform high-throughput fluorescence imaging (GCaMP6f) in healthy mice in a cell-specific and non-invasive manner during rest and sensorimotor tasks in order to map healthy networks and understand patterns due to disease processes.
Modulation of brain state, e.g., by anesthesia, alters the correlation structure of spontaneous activity, especially in the delta band. This effect has largely been attributed to the ∼1 Hz slow oscillation that is characteristic of anesthesia and nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. However, the effect of the slow oscillation on correlation structures and the spectral content of spontaneous activity across brain states (including NREM) has not been comprehensively examined. Further, discrepancies between activity dynamics observed with hemoglobin versus calcium (GCaMP6) imaging have not been reconciled. Lastly, whether the slow oscillation replaces functional connectivity (FC) patterns typical of the alert state, or superimposes on them, remains unclear. Here, we use wide-field calcium imaging to study spontaneous cortical activity in awake, anesthetized, and naturally sleeping mice. We find modest brain state-dependent changes in infraslow correlations but larger changes in GCaMP6 delta correlations. Principal component analysis of GCaMP6 sleep/anesthesia data in the delta band revealed that the slow oscillation is largely confined to the first three components. Removal of these components revealed a correlation structure strikingly similar to that observed during wake. These results indicate that, during NREM sleep/anesthesia, the slow oscillation superimposes onto a canonical FC architecture.
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